


A Dance with Death and Demons

by CrazyAce_n_PokerFace



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Origin Story, POV Second Person, Черно Альфа | Cherno Alpha - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 17:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrazyAce_n_PokerFace/pseuds/CrazyAce_n_PokerFace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You are twenty-one-years-old and a dancer in Moscow’s finest ballet company when your world ends.</i>
</p><p>The story of how Sasha Starkova became Sasha Kaidonovsky, one of the best Jaegar pilots in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dance with Death and Demons

**Author's Note:**

> Author Note: I have not read any of the supplementary materials, simply watched the film, and this is my version of how Sasha Kaidonovsky became one of the most respected Jaegar pilots in the world.
> 
> I hope I did this amazing character justice, and I hope you enjoy the first part of this story as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. :)

 

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**A Dance with Death and Demons, Ch. 1**

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* * *

 

You are twenty-one-years-old and a dancer in Moscow’s finest ballet company when your world ends.

Your three brothers are all in the navy, saltwater running in your family’s veins as far back as your great-great-great-grandfather, who bought a boat and became a fisherman and once ferried a tsar’s cousin to China, or so the story goes. Whatever the reason, the Starkovs are born to walk the seas, and your brothers are no different.

They die like fish caught in a great, unyielding net, torn to bits in the wake of the fourth-ever Kaiju attack, and you watch it happen live on television, hands clenched into fists as everyone cries out around you, eyes fixed on the ships the monster sinks like toy boats, knowing with a terrible, unyielding certainty that Andrei, that Nikolai, that Mikhail  _must_  be on them.

They wouldn’t run, not even from a leviathan.

Their bodies are never found, never even looked for, because what is there to find? Who even has time to spare a thought for them, other than a five-line letter to you, their little sister, explaining that they died heroes’ deaths, died serving their country, will never be forgotten, etc., etc.

You are twenty-one years old, and you know a lie when you see one.

 

* * *

 

You quit the ballet. You ignore what’s left of your family’s protests (dead, all of them dead, your brothers, your mother, your father, your aunts and uncles and cousins—only a scattered few left of the Starkovs after the monster was done with the coast). You pound on the door of an admiral who knew your brothers until he gives in and gets you a job in the crisis division.

You’re little better than a glorified secretary/coffee-maker, but you will take what you can get.

(They take you a little more seriously after you break Pyotr Vengerov’s foot when he tries to grope you.)

 

* * *

 

They don’t seem very concerned, the people in charge. They want to rebuild, they want to recover, they want things to go back to normal, to pretend that none of it ever happened.

You want to scream at them that things are  _never_  going back to normal, that those things are coming back, that we have to prepare, to brace ourselves, to get ready to fight back,  _why_  aren’t we going to  _fight back_?  

One and a half years later, the Kaijus have done enough screaming to prove you right.

 

* * *

 

You shaved your head when your family died—started wearing your hair in a buzzcut.

Your cousin Alina doesn’t like the way it looks. “You look like a boy, Sasha. Your hair used to be so pretty when it was long.”

You don’t say anything, but when you look in the mirror—high cheekbones, fierce stare, square, stubborn jaw—you think you look like your brothers did.

It comforts you, that their faces stare back at you from the mirror, reflected in your own.

(The similarity’s a little off, of course—your boys tended to always have a twinkle in their eyes, and now yours are the frigid blue of a lifeless lake, just as cold and just as dead.)

 

* * *

 

When you hear what the government’s come up with to defeat the Kaijus, you laugh.

Giant robots? Really? Your brothers would have a fit.

You and Alina snicker on their behalf, giggling together for the first time in what feels like years.

“What do you think you think they’ll call it?” she says. “Sputnik? R2-D2? WALL-E?”

You just laugh harder, slamming your fist on the rickety table until tears roll down your face.

 

* * *

 

You’re not laughing when the admiral takes you with him to see one being built.

You gaze up at it, your heart pounding in your chest, staring at bones of iron and sinews of steel and veins of metal, and you think to yourself that  _this_ is what courage looks like.  _This_  is how we will fight back.

You get to your room and stare in the mirror, and for once, dead eyes don’t look back.

 

* * *

 

The next day, when the admiral has you type up a list of candidates to pilot the machine (Jaegar, they call it, German for hunter—you like it. You think it has fire. You think it’s about time for us to do some hunting, to be predator instead of prey), you add yours to the list:

Sasha Starkova.

 

* * *

 

They don’t find out you shouldn’t be there until you’re halfway through testing, and by that time you’ve scored higher on compatibility with the neural processors than anyone else.

The generals and officers are in an uproar, yelling that there is no way on earth you should even be let near a Jaegar; the engineers and scientists yell back, saying that you’ve done better than anyone else by a whole 38%.

The admiral looks at you, the way you’re standing with your shoulders set back and your chin stubbornly set and your eyes like flint, head held high like you’re daring someone to take a punch at you, and he sighs, resigned.

“Let her do it,” he says. “She can’t do any worse than the idiots we’ve got already trying it.”

He walks past you to exit the room, and you dip your head in acknowledgement and thanks.

You think you see his lips lift in a faint smile before he leaves your line of sight, and there’s an answering grin on your face, sharp and wolfish, when you turn to face your dissenters. You’ve got one foot in the door and there’s no way you’ll let them push you out.

You’re going to be a Jaegar pilot.

You’re going to fight monsters.

And you’re going to win.

 

* * *

 

There are fifteen potential pilots in the Russian program, and only you and one other are women.

The men jeer at you as you walk into the mess hall, and one stands up and swaggers towards you.

“Hey, bitch,” he says, and tries to slap your ass as he passes by—“tried” being the operative word, because you spin around, grab him by the arm, and slam him face-first into a table.

“My name,” you say calmly, coldly, “is Starkova. I only answer to ‘bitch’ if it is followed by ‘in charge.’ Otherwise, you will call me Starkova, or I will take this knife—” you pull it out of the holster you keep strapped to your leg (it’s one of Mikhail’s old ones, his initials still engraved on the base of the blade) “—and cut off your balls. Your choice, my friend.”

You step back and let him go, watching him carefully to see if he’ll fight you, but he’s a coward content to slink back to his table. You ignore the hostile glares coming from most of the others and walk towards the serving tables.

You don’t expect to hear the sound of slow, steady clapping, and you turn around to find one of the other pilots grinning at you. He’s a bear of a man, with a dark brown beard and bleached blond hair, tattoos decorating his forearms and creeping underneath the sleeves of his shirt. When you meet his eyes, he  _winks_ at you.

You roll your eyes and turn away, unimpressed.

You grab your tray of food and walk over to the table where the other woman pilot sits, plop yourself down, and shove a hand towards her.

“Starkova,” you say.

She takes it, blue eyes reserved but respectful. “Larisa Ostrovsky. That was a nice chokehold you had Malakhov in.”

“Oh? Malakhov? So that’s what Stupid is called,” you say lightly.

She laughs, her plain, square face transformed, and you laugh with her, sneaking a glance at the others in the room and noting how disturbed some of them look.

Larisa leans forward and says in a low voice, “I think we’re scaring the boys.”

You smile and say, “Good.” 


End file.
